Water Intake and the hCG Diet- 6 Tips to help you drink the right amount for YOU.

Let’s talk both about drinking enough water on Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) but also the dangers of drinking too many liquids as well. Here are 6 tips to help you drink the proper amount of liquids for your body.

Tip 1: Thirsty not Hungry.

Drinking enough liquids while on HCG Injections is a definite factor in not eating too much on the protocol. Sometimes when you think you are hungry on the protocol, you are actually thirsty- use this as your first line of defense before you eat too many calories on the protocol. Try drinking something first, like some hot tea with stevia, and see if you are still hungry after that. We know that eating too many calories on the diet makes the whole protocol totally ineffective, so this is a good thing to try when you’ve eaten your calories for the day and think you’re still hungry for more (being excessively hungry on the protocol is also often a dose issue which I talk about here.)

Tip 2: Drink liquids throughout the day, not all at once.

Interesting fact about your kidneys….it appears that healthy kidneys can process about a quarter gallon of water per hour at rest- that’s 1 quart. So it’s a good idea not to chug down a whole gallon of water in 20 minutes- that could be kind of taxing on your kidneys and cause an electrolyte imbalance as well. You don’t need to really overthink this, but I wanted to just mention it briefly because on this protocol, many people online and in youtube vlogs put a lot of emphasis on drinking tons and tons of water. This could actually be unsafe, even life threatening, depending on what your definition of tons of water is of course. One thing that can happen if you drink way too much water all at once is that the electrolytes in your system can get too diluted leading to a condition called Hyponatremia (insufficient salt in your blood). Honestly this isn’t probably gong to happen to any of you hCGers- most of the time this appears to be an issue for athletes who’ve just done a huge amount of exercise and lost a lot of electrolytes through their copious sweating and then drinking plain water which doesn’t replace those electrolytes. But it’s still worth mentioning, proving that, as with all things in life really, you want to approach everything in a balanced way, including how you drink liquids. Be sensible. Don’t panic and reach for a couple gallon jugs when the latest youtube vlogger reminds you to drink tons of water.

How To Tell If You’re Drinking Enough Water:

Tip 3: What Dr. Simeons, the original creator of the hCG protocol suggested

It is going to vary somewhat obviously because we’re all different heights, weights and have different activity levels on the protocol . Dr. Simeons who wrote the original diet protocol recommended 2 liters of liquids a day, which is a little over 2 quarts, or half a gallon.

Tip 4: Check how much you pee each morning and its color.

It should be a copious amount and pale or clear (unless you’re taking lots of b vitamins, in which case the color of your urine will probably be bright yellow even if you’re fully hydrated). So if you wake up the in a.m. and don’t really have to pee much or it’s fairly dark in color, you may likely be dehydrated.

Tip 5: To keep your electrolytes in balance, a simple cup of hot tea with a pinch of salt can do the trick.

You can also use this to maintain electorlyte balance during the 1st week:

Sugar Free Electrolyte powder – Blueberry Pomegranate Flavor

Tip 6: Off hCG, weigh yourself daily for a week.

Try weighing yourself daily for a week- your weight should remain relatively the same when you weigh yourself in the morning. If you’re not drinking enough water and your body is dehydrated, your body is actually going to hold on to water and you may see bigger fluctuations on the scale. A good example of a time we’ve probably all experienced this phenonemon is when you eat 3 slices of pizza and a beer with your friends one night and the next morning, your face is feels swollen, your rings won’t budge, and you weight 3 lbs more on the scale than usual. All that’s happening is that your body is retaining water to compensate for all the sodium you took in. Water makes up about 60% of the human body, give or take. Here’s a great short article discussing water and our bodies. That’s why it’s important to get our fluids in. But some of us really don’t like to just drink plain water so it can really be a challenge- that’s why in my next post I’ll talk about some creative ways to make drinking enough fluids while on the diet plan both easy and enjoyable.